Dear MARMAM!,

📢 SURVEY: Using Drones for Marine Mammal Monitoring and Research

Do you use - or have you ever used - drones in marine mammal research? If so, we’d love to hear from you! Please take ~20 minutes to complete our short survey and help us map the growing range of ways Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles (UAVs; drones) are being used around the world for marine mammal monitoring and research: https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/uhi/drones-for-marine-mammal-research-and-monitoring 

By pooling knowledge from projects globally, we aim to capture the diversity of applications, species, project goals, and researcher experiences associated with drone use in marine mammal science. Our goal is to highlight emerging approaches, share lessons learned, and help inform future projects and best practice.

The anonymised results will be presented at a one-day workshop at the European Cetacean Society Conference in Dundee (April 2026):  Flying Forward: Innovations, Ethics, and Best Practices for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Marine Mammal Research. We also plan to share the outcomes more widely through a publication later this year.

We would greatly appreciate responses by 31^st March, although the survey will remain open after this date.

The more responses we receive, the better we can represent how drones are being used globally - so please feel free to share this invitation with colleagues and networks who may also have relevant experience.

Many thanks for your support!

Sarah Dolman, Emily Hague and Claire Stainfield
Workshop Organisers